Life

Jen Annett Has Eyes Set On Kona And IRONMAN Win

After clocking several bike-course records (including the IRONMAN bike world-best in Texas last May) then getting a disappointing mechanical on the bike in Hawaii in October, Canadian pro Jen Annett is raring to go after her season goals.

by Bethany Mavis

This article is presented by Ventum.

Pro triathlete Jen Annett has had more than her share of setbacks in her almost 34 years. Just 10 days out from her first IRONMAN World Championship in 2008, for which she had qualified as an age-grouper at her first-ever IRONMAN, she was hit by a car. She went on to race in Hawaii anyway (“It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do,” she says, “but I was like, ‘Our trip is booked and I’m going.’”). Over the next two years, she started having “spells,” which she later learned were simple partial seizures. In December 2010, she had her first grand mal seizure. She walked away from the neurologist’s office devastated—she was told she couldn’t ride her bike, drive or bathe by herself. And if she wanted to have children, it would be risky, and the baby would likely have birth defects. However, it wasn’t till she got the opinion of a second neurologist six months later that she learned her actual diagnosis—epilepsy—and that she was given some hope. Even though she dealt with seizures throughout her pregnancy, she was able to give birth to a healthy baby boy, now 6 years old.

After the birth of her son, Annett went pro in triathlon in 2013 and has been racking up podium finishes and bike course records ever since. We caught up with the Penticton, British Columbia–based pro to find out how she strikes a work-life balance, what’s coming up for her this season and how triathlon helps her deal with her epilepsy.

Ironman.com: What got you into triathlon?

Jen Annett: Growing up in Kelowna, which is only 45 minutes north of Penticton, I had never heard of IRONMAN before. Then we moved to Penticton in 2005, and in ’06, my husband was working on the day of IRONMAN Canada, and he was like, ‘You should go check this thing out. It’s supposed to be pretty big.’ I went, and just seeing all those athletes, I was just like, ‘I want to do this. If those people can do this, I want to do this.’ As soon as registration opened for 2008, I signed up. … I qualified for Kona in my very first IRONMAN. It almost felt like—I shouldn’t say a calling, but it was like, ‘Wow, this is something that I’m actually good at.’ So that’s a motivator, right? I was only 23, so still very young and really not having any idea what I was doing with my life. So that was my motivator right there. I just fell into something that I obviously have some sort of talent with, and that’s how my racing started.

IM.com: What is your daily schedule between training and being with your family?

JA: Crazy—does that sum it up? [laughing] First and foremost, family has always come first, and it always will. I will bend my training schedule around my family schedule, but it takes a little bit of creativity when it comes to that. So right now, I’m sitting at about 20–22 hours a week of training. With the exception of a day or two, it’s usually between 2 and 4 or 4.5 hours a day right now. Typically, pool around 6 in the morning—I will squish in a swim before my husband goes to work. And then I come home, he goes to work, I’ll take my son to school, and then once he’s in school, I’ll do the rest of my training. I’ll usually run home, jump on my bike for a couple hours, get in a run, and then I will pick him up from school. And he’s in swim club, so sometimes I will put in a second swim while he’s in the pool or another run. And then by the time we get home, it’s time to make dinner and spend a little bit of time together and then it’s lights out for pretty much all of us.

IM.com: You just switched to riding a Ventum—why do you think that bike is best for your racing?

JA: I’m super excited to be with them. I have two friends who have Ventum bikes, and they absolutely love them because they’re super easy to handle and super fast, and if you go and look at all the data from wind tunnel testing, those bikes are right up there. … I’m super stoked because the product is so good and it has such good results—we’ve all seen that. But also because the people behind the company are also amazing people. That means a lot to me as well, to be able to have that connection with somebody who truly supports their athletes. I’m looking forward to hammering out some course-best times on that bike.

IM.com: What’s the status of your epilepsy now?

JA: I haven’t had a seizure in four or five years. I’m still on the same medication that I’ve been on for a number of years now. Doctors will say it’s under control because of the medication; I honestly think that it’s a combination of the medication and my training because in the past when I was having seizures, I was always having them in my off-season, when I was barely training at all. I’ve never had a seizure when I am in peak season training—it’s hard not to believe it doesn’t play a role in it. … If I wanted to go off medication, it means I can’t drive again for six months and it’s a trial, and then when you try to wean it down from a level that’s working, the possibility of the seizures coming back is very big. With what I’m doing with my life, I don’t feel it’s the right time to try to explore that—there are too many risks.

IM.com: What advice would you have for someone who’s dealing with some physical illness and feeling pretty hopeless?

JA: My biggest piece of advice is if I could just step back and look at the whole picture, yes it sucks, but it’s something beyond my control that’s happening to me. And it’s something I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life. I can either choose to be down in the dumps about it and bring everybody else down with me, or I can choose to be positive and figure out ways to make things happen that I want to make happen. … Use your support groups around you—that’s what they’re there for. And the people who love you the most will be there no matter what. I’m not somebody who feels comfortable asking for help, so that was a big step for me, but it does make all the difference in the world. … And really—yes, it sucks, and yes, I wish that I didn’t have this, but there’s always somebody out there that has it worse, so why can’t I make this work? I feel like racing and being successful at racing has allowed me to come out of my shell and share my story and motivate other people. If you’ve got your goals and your dreams, you can make them happen. It might be harder to get there and maybe the end result won’t be what it was prior to whatever it is that happened, but you can still make it work.

IM.com: What are your goals both short term and long term in triathlon?

JA: My goal is going back to Kona this year. The other goal—and I’m not going to lie—is I have been second way too many times. I’m tired of being a bridesmaid, so if I could win an IRONMAN this year, I would be the happiest person. Those are two really big goals, but I feel like they’re achievable. I’ve had tons of podium finishes, and if I can even execute a race like I did in Arizona [where she got third and a bike-course record] with a little bit of a faster swim, winning is definitely a reality.